Luis (Royal Caleva #2)

CHAPTER 16

Luis flicked through the pages of the book on fencing strategy without reading a single word. He had brought Camacho’s gift with him, thinking he might have time to enjoy a chapter or two while at Casa en las Nubes.

However, Eve had derailed his concentration the moment she had brushed her fingers over his beard at the beach, her featherlight touch streaking down to his cock like a laser. As he stared down at the open book, all he could think of was the feel of her lips against his, of her hands on his skin inside his opened shirt, and of her softly curved body pressed along the length of his.

At dinner, it had taken all his concentration to converse coherently when she sat so close that he could reach out and touch her. For a few moments, he had imagined ripping off her blouse to cup the curves of her breasts before he lowered his head to suck her nipples into peaks. He had forced himself to banish the delicious idea from his mind until now.

Now his cock hardened again as he let that picture linger in his mind.

But his phone lay stubbornly silent on the coffee table after he had allowed himself to send the one text.

A good sign or a bad one?

He slammed down the book and paced the length of the sala again, glancing out the wall of windows to see the lights of a large ship riding the dark sea. Probably a U.S. naval vessel since the American base lay farther along the coast.

He had tried hard not to let this happen. Eve being Grace’s mother complicated the situation. Yet relationships in his life were always complicated. If he had allowed that to stop him, he would be even more alone than he already was. He had made his decision. Now it was up to Eve to make hers.

He pivoted and stalked back to where the book lay on the coffee table, hurling himself into a chair beside it. Before he could sweep up the tome again, a soft chime sounded. He went still as anticipation burned through him like a flare.

Someone was climbing the stairs to his suite. The paranoid billionaire had installed alarms within alarms in this house, and Mikel made sure they all continued to function.

Then Luis was on his feet, striding to the door to pull it open. As Eve reached the top of the staircase, she stopped, looking startled. “Luis.”

Instead of racing across the landing to pull her against him and slam his mouth down on hers, he opened the door wider and stepped back. “Please come in.”

She nodded and walked toward him. He tried to read her intentions, but she looked more nervous than anything else. Perhaps she had come to tell him no. It would be like her to do that in person because she would deem it the right way to handle a rejection.

Once she was inside the room, he closed the door. She stood in front of him, her eyes wide and unsmiling, her hands twisted together at her waist, her beautiful hair cascading over her shoulders. Not throwing herself into his arms.

“You did not answer my text,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.

“It would have required that I think, and I didn’t want to do that.” She took a deep breath. “Luis, I made my choice.”

“And what is it?” He braced himself for her answer.

“I choose you.”

Eve saw the moment his control snapped, and she almost turned and ran. The desire that blazed across his face was so intense that it scared her…and sent an answering flash of wanting burning through her.

He needed only one long stride to reach her before he banded his arms around her and brought her against the hard, hot wall of his body. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, her nipples hardening to aching points, while his mouth came down on hers in a fierce claiming.

She slid her hands around his neck and into the silvery silk of his hair, trying to meld herself with him as longing slid through her. She wanted him to touch her breasts, the aching spot between her legs, and everywhere else on her body. Her craving was almost painful in its strength.

He shifted to a different angle against her lips, his tongue teasing hers. He slid his hands up to cradle her face as he explored her mouth, his lips warm and firm, the soft brush of his beard an extra fillip of sensation against her skin. The man knew how to kiss.

She slid her hands down over his shoulders, savoring the curves and valleys of his muscles until she reached the first button of his shirt and yanked it out of the hole. She wanted bare skin, so she kept going until she could tug his shirt out of his waistband and run her hands over his ribs and up his back.

He broke the kiss to let his head fall back. “Dios mio!” he moaned. “That feels so good.”

She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and gently raked her nails over the golden skin stretched over the flexing muscles, and he moaned again. He was so beautiful in an entirely masculine way. She leaned in to lick one of his dark, flat nipples, sampling the different textures there.

“Si, Eve!”

He didn’t give her a chance to touch the other one. He sank his fingers into her hair and pulled her head back so he could lick his way down her neck and into the V of her blouse, thrusting his tongue into the valley between her breasts. The slight roughness with the heat and moisture made her shiver with longing.

He released her hair and cupped her breasts, circling his thumbs over her nipples, first gently and then harder as she pressed into his hands. Ropes of fire streaked from her nipples to flare low in her belly, and she pulsed her pelvis against his thigh as the blaze heated.

“Do not come until I am inside you,” he commanded as he began to unbutton her blouse.

“Then hurry up,” she said, pulling his belt buckle open. His erection pushed against the gray fabric of his trousers.

He smiled, but it was the triumphant smile of a wolf who had his prey cornered. He slipped her blouse down her arms and tossed it away before he found the catch on her bra and flicked it open.

Thank goodness she had bought new lingerie before coming to Caleva. Not because in her wildest dreams she’d thought this would happen, but because Luis had made her feel feminine again.

Of course, he wasn’t paying any attention to the cream lace as he hurled it onto the chair where her blouse had landed. His gaze was locked on her bare breasts. For a moment, she worried that they were no longer perky, and then his mouth was on one and his palm on the other, and she didn’t care. Pleasure zinged around inside her, lighting her up like a pinball machine.

The exquisite tension between her legs coiled tighter.

“You’re going to make me come,” she gasped out.

He let her nipple slide out of his mouth, grazing the tip of it with his teeth, the sensation making her buck against him. His smile was intense. “I can’t allow that.”

He brushed his fingers over her sensitized breasts once more, as though he didn’t want to stop touching them. Then he intertwined his fingers with hers and pulled her through a door into his bedroom.

The room was lit only by the flames flickering in a modern steel fireplace, and the moonlight reflecting on the water through a wall of glass. The light glinted off the gilt decorating the spines of another wall filled with books. A brief wave of gratitude washed over her. All the flaws of her fifty-plus-year-old body would be less obvious in the dim light. At least she stayed in decent shape, because being a vet tech was a physical job.

Luis drew her to the enormous bed covered with a blue velvet duvet.

“I want to take my time with you,” he said, his hands again cupping her breasts. “But I need to be inside you.”

“Who says you can’t do both?” she said, running her hands over the muscles in his forearms. “Just reverse the order.”

“The can-do Iowan with a solution.” He bent to kiss first one nipple and then the other before he shrugged out of his shirt and stripped off his shoes, socks, and trousers with swift efficiency, leaving only black boxers tented by his erection.

“Oh my goodness,” she breathed as her gaze roved over the lines of defined muscles running down his abdomen, thighs, and calves.

She reached out to trace them, but he seized her wrists. “We are hurrying now so we can take time later,” he reminded her, releasing her hands so he could unbutton her trousers and push them down to pool at her ankles. She toed off her shoes and stepped out of the puddle of fabric. He hooked a finger in each side of her lacy panties, but his eyes were locked on hers. “You can still say no, Eve,” he said.

“Only if I want to explode from sexual frustration,” she said, putting her hands on his and pushing them downward.

He laughed, a short bark of relief, before he yanked her panties to her ankles and straightened again. This time, his gaze traveled the length of her body. She would have felt self-conscious except his expression was one of pure lust. “Hermosisima!” he murmured, his face ablaze with his desire for her.

“My turn,” she said, thrusting her thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, the fabric smooth and slippery. Silk, of course. She had to pull the front outward to clear the jut of his cock before she let them fall.

He was glorious, like a statue with planes and angles sculpted by an artist. She laid her hands on his chest to enjoy the living warmth of him, not stone at all. “I feel…a little awed,” she said.

His eyebrows drew down before he stepped into her so she could feel his cock against her belly, his chest pressed against her breasts, and his fingers curling into her buttocks. He lowered his mouth to whisper beside her ear. “I am only a man desperate to make love to a beautiful, sexy woman. All I want you to feel is pleasure.”

And then he backed her into the bed and lowered her gently onto the duvet before he leaned over to brace his arms on the bed as he looked down at her. “I have been dreaming about this almost since the day I met you.”

He stretched one hand out to slide open a drawer in the bedside table and pull out a condom. Before she could tell him it wasn’t necessary, he had rolled it onto his erection. And she understood. He was a hereditary ruler. Where he dallied could have serious consequences.

He slid one knee and then the other between her legs, spreading her thighs. “Say yes, Eve, one more time.”

“Yes, Luis, yes, yes, yes!” She reached for his cock, but he was already sliding inside her, stretching her and filling the ache so completely that she felt like crying with the relief of it.

But she wanted more. She tilted her pelvis upward to bring Luis deeper. He groaned, a long drawn-out sound of pleasure. “Eve, this is so good,” he said, beginning to move inside her.

“Buenisimo!” she managed to say as the friction tightened the coil of longing in her gut.

“Magnifico!” he said, withdrawing and thrusting ever more quickly.

“No. More. Words.” She matched his rhythm before closing her eyes to let sensation roll through her.

Wrapping his hands under her thighs, he held her fully open so he could control every stroke. He kept shifting the angle of her pelvis so his movement sometimes pressed her clit hard, sometimes softly. She could not anticipate the exact sensation it would evoke, and the surprise pushed her up to the top, where she balanced for a long, exquisite moment, savoring what was about to happen.

He let himself loose with two hard, deep thrusts, and she exploded around his cock, the squeeze and release of her muscles sending bolts of delight crashing through her. She arched against the bed, grabbing his wrists to anchor herself as she shrieked, “Yes, Luis, yessss! Oh, yes!”

He went still, allowing her to focus on her orgasm, reveling in having him inside her as she convulsed. Her body vibrated with the delicious intensity, almost to the point of overload. Slowly, the waves of sensation eased, turning to ripples.

“Finish!” she said, tightening her muscles around him.

“Me corro ahora!” He drove into her once, twice, and the third time, he threw back his head to shout her name as he pulsed deep inside her.

Then she was sinking down into the gorgeous aftermath, her skin flushed with warmth, her muscles lax with release, her body humming with satiation. Luis stayed inside her, so she squeezed him again, just to tantalize them both.

“Ay, I have nothing left,” he said with a gasping laugh.

“I don’t either, but it still feels good,” she said, giving a little moan of regret as he slipped out of her.

Lowering her legs gently, he grasped her knees and lifted them to turn her so she lay fully on the bed. After stripping off the condom, he stood looking down at her before he ran his palm over the curve of her hip and down the outside of her thigh. “Mmm,” she said, not caring what he saw as long as he touched her.

“You are better than my dreams,” he said, his voice low and caressing.

“You are a flatterer.” She scooted sideways even as an embarrassed gratification surged through her. She didn’t believe him, but it was nice to hear. “Come join me. I want to snuggle.”

He looked surprised and oddly sad before he said, “With pleasure.” He stretched out on the duvet, gathering her up against his side, her head on his chest.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked.

“Very comfortable.” It felt wonderful to have his body against hers, his skin smooth and warm except where hair lightly furred his chest and thighs. The maleness of him with his long, hard muscles contrasted delectably with her softer curves. She nestled in closer with a sigh of contentment. “This is nice.”

“Yes, it is.” He stroked her hair in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. “Will you stay here with me until morning?”

“I, well, maybe until very early morning so no one sees me sneaking back to my bedroom.” She hadn’t thought about what would happen after they had sex. The debate about whether to come to his bedroom had taken up all the bandwidth in her brain. “I know we’re all having breakfast together at seven thirty, but what time does Raul actually get up?”

“If you leave here at six, you should be safe.” She felt his lips brush the top of her head. “Gracias.”

He was thanking her for staying with him? “It’s not a hardship, you know.”

His chuckle vibrated against her cheek. “I am glad to hear that. But perhaps we should get under the covers.”

She tilted her head to watch the flickering light of the fire play over the ridges of his torso. “You’re keeping me warm, and I’d like to enjoy the view a little longer.”

“You can still see the moon and water when you’re under the duvet.”

“I meant this view.” She feathered her fingers over his abs, causing his muscles to contract.

“I am enjoying my view as well.” He skimmed his hand over her waist and hip, a delicious shiver following his touch. “I was putting your comfort before my happiness.”

“You’re a better person than I am.”

“In this case, your selfishness works in my favor.”

She hummed an answer as she savored the play of light over his muscled body, his heartbeat strong against her ear. Of course he would be beautiful after all those generations of kings and queens choosing the most desirable mates.

Without even thinking, she said, “Why didn’t you marry again? You wanted a large family, and women must have lined up for the chance to bear your children.” She realized that was very personal, even given their recent intimacy. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”

His sigh ruffled her hair. “There are many answers to that question. I was very busy learning to be a monarch and father, which left me little time to seek a new queen.”

She noticed he didn’t argue with her that women would line up to marry him, but then why should he? He had been on every international most-eligible-bachelors list for decades.

“But once you figured all that out?” she prodded.

“I’m not sure I have figured it out even now.” He paused a moment. “Once I settled into my two most important roles, I found I had no interest in anything more than…liaisons.”

Liaisons. That was the category she fell into. It sounded better than a one-night stand.

“I can see that Odette Fontaine might have left a bad taste in your mouth, although you didn’t know she was a psychopath back then,” Eve said. “But there must have been plenty of nice, sane women you could have married.”

His bark of a laugh held no humor. “Perhaps I did not trust myself to recognize which women were sane and which were not.”

“You’re older and wiser now. You could still have children with a younger woman.”

“Ay, Eve, I am indeed older. Too old to want to raise babies. I am awaiting grandchildren.”

He wouldn’t have to raise the babies. He had staff for that, but he wouldn’t want to leave a child of his to nannies, of course.

He fell silent for a long moment before saying in a harsh voice, “My wife died because she married me. I brought Odette into my family circle, and my nephew was tortured and mutilated as a result. Nothing in those experiences would incline me to attempt another serious relationship.”

The raw emotion in his voice punched her in the gut. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“Sometimes it is good to say these things out loud,” he said. “We learn more when we put the feelings into words.”

“Did you learn something?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“I have made two disastrous choices, but only two. Perhaps that is bad luck, not a pattern.” His shrug shifted his chest against her cheek. “Why didn’t you marry again? You are a beautiful, accomplished woman whom a man would be privileged to marry.”

She ignored his compliment. “Maybe I didn’t trust myself to recognize the wrong person either.” But that was only part of it, and maybe she owed him her truth. “I felt defective,” she nearly whispered. “I wasn’t able to have a baby. That’s why Ben left me. No one would want to marry someone defective.”

His arm tightened around her as his breath hissed in. “Qué cabrón! That bastard! You know that is not true.”

“When you’re very young, and the man you love tells you the same thing over and over again, you internalize it. It’s a hard thing to shake after that, no matter how much older and wiser you get.”

“But now you are beyond the issue of childbearing, so what holds you back?”

“Seriously? I’m not a king with a castle, a private jet, and a yacht. No one is standing in line for a middle-aged vet tech.”

“I have demonstrated that my gender can be very stupid about women. I am happy to be at the front of the line.” He tilted her chin up so that he could press a kiss on her lips. She kissed him back, loving the feel of his mouth on hers.

“I’m happy that you are the line.” She stroked the soft springiness of his beard. “This is so surreal when I stop to think about it.”

“You said you did not want to think, so don’t.” He grazed his fingers down her shoulder to tease her nipple. Electric pleasure zinged through her. “In fact, my wiser self says that we should stop dwelling on the ugly past and focus our attention on the delightful present.”

He rolled them both over so he was braced on his forearms above her while his thighs settled between hers. When he slid down her body to kiss his way along the inside of her thighs, she forgot about everything except how very good he made her feel.

When Luis woke up for the second time, he was alone, and the sky was beginning to lighten. Eve had slipped out of bed while it was still dark. After he had seen her to the door, he had settled in the spot where she had lain, soaking up the lingering warmth and scent of her before he fell back to sleep.

Crossing his arms behind his head, he basked in the sense of well-being that hummed through his body. He enjoyed the feel of the smooth cotton sheets against his skin. He hadn’t slept in the nude for too long. It had become routine to wear pajamas in case he had to deal with a middle-of-the-night emergency. Now he relished the sensuality of being naked.

Which led to memories of Eve touching him and of him touching her. His cock stirred agreeably at the pictures spooling through his mind. He had enough experience to be a capable lover, but Eve had responded with such joy that he had stopped thinking and just let things happen. It was freeing to forget about performing and instead be guided by pure feeling.

They had made love three times before parting, trying delicious variations on the age-old act. He should be heavy-eyed from the lack of sleep, but energy coursed through him as the sky glowed pink and gold with the sunrise. Still, he didn’t get up, choosing to luxuriate a little longer in the contentment wrapped around him.

His cell phone buzzed, and he sat up with a sigh, throwing the covers back to swing his legs over the side of the bed. He took time to stretch before he swiped up the phone to read the text. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Everything was in place for his surprise for Eve and Grace.